Us or Them
by CreativeLiterature
Summary: A very short ficlet based off a dream I had. Cersei has no one to turn to in King's Landing.


_A/N: Please note, this is all from my dream this morning and lacks substantive continuity, borrows words that asoiaf lore wouldn't use and is generally a vague mist of recollection. In my dream I was looking through Cersei's POV, so it is more or less my actions through her body, and we all know how dreams take us across multiverse planes!_

Cersei sat opposite Tywin in her palatial quarters in King's Landing.

"Father, I believe Petyr Baelish is involved with Lysa Arryn, the two shared a pact to eliminate Jon Arryn and cast the blame on us. He even believes his first time was with Catelyn when drunk but Lysa took advantage of him."

"What nonsense is this? What proof do you have, Cersei?" Tywin furrowed his brow.

"None," Cersei replied lamely. "I dreamed it - "

"Enough of this," Tywin rose, his golden armor and red cloak. "If Petyr is a traitor I will see to it myself. Entertain no more of these fantasies. Good day."

"Yes, my lord," but he was her father, strapping and tall without a worry in the world for what others might think of him. In fact that was not true given what the Reynes and Tarbecks had befallen them. But with Tywin as her father Cersei could sleep safe at night. That was the best part of being a Lannister alongside the gold coin and soldiers.

Cersei gathered her skirts to look out the balcony window at King's Landing, rotting and decaying with the filth of commoners and travellers and winesinks alike. These stupid people. As she looked she half expected to notice which of the beggars were in Petyr's pocket, reporting her actions or even Varys' little birds...

Come to think of it, they were all birds. Nobody was present. Kings Landing seemed nigh empty to her. As she turned her head to watch Tywin go, the birds turned to ravens, black ravens who flew into the sky.

 _This cannot bode well,_ Cersei thought, filled with the miasma of her surely portent dreams to come. I must warn Tywin. I must save him before it is too late and he realises King's Landing is but a shell and we its only inhabitants, pearls in an oyster ripe for the picking.

Cersei tore down the stairs, stopping only to call for her guards who were not present. No guards in sight, none to protect her father as he strode out valiantly into the streets of King's Landing with but his armor and his formal presence. What was he thinking? What were we all thinking?

Down through the dusty street Cersei ran, like a peasant villager running to collect her washing in from the line, seeing her father take a horse from the stable and set off, the alleyways and market square of King's Landing like a ghost town.

"Father, wait!" Cersei called but there was no turning back, he had fled to pastures greener. But when would he be back?

Before she knew it, she was the one riding a horse, feeling the supple sinew between her thighs with no horse riding experience whatsoever fled to where Tywin stood, in a paddock of some kind used by farmers. She dismounted and hurried to his side, having stolen a rapier from a weapons rack for the two of them were all alone in this gaping, green wilderness.

Together they dismounted and ran for ride they could no longer, Tywin nodding as though understanding the danger the two of them were in, isolated in a field. Cersei gripped her rapier tightly, feeling the blood pound in her veins. She ripped her gold dress so she might run faster, like a harlot in the rain.

"Ty - My lord, if we are captured, you must commit seppuku or they will ransom you for all the gold in Casterly Rock."

"There is no need for that," Tywin added wryly. "We will win."

 _Where are your men? Where are your soldiers?_ Cersei wanted to ask, but dashed the thought as she saw a peasant girl speeding across the field.

Who is that?" Cersei darted like a snake.

I've called for a servant," Tywin showed her his bloodied arm.

Cersei took the poultice from the well intentioned woman, a heavy soaking towelette looking thing. "Careful, m'lady, it'll spill if you're not careful,"

 _Like I know what I'm doing,_ Cersei thought.

"Give it to me," Cersei would let no mere servant would touch her father. She picked up the heavy poultice, water running down her arms and staining her dress though it had long since been ripped and muddied from the running. She held the poultice to her father's muscled arms then turned at a shout, to see farmers with pitchforks and other deadlier steel approach, whirling in fear to hear a shout from a cavalry charge -

"Jaime!" Cersei could've wept, for it was but her, Tywin and the servants whom were elderly or children or villagers with no skill at the sword whatsoever.

He charged and began cutting them down while Cersei retreated to fend to the villagers, cowering and such. Tywin would not allow her to be harmed, but she needed to help! This was her chance to be a man like her brother Jaime and use steel.

She picked up the fallen rapier, making ribbons of the townsfolk who came forth with murder in their eyes. Acrid bile like fear rose in her throat as she slashed, grey morasses where their wounds would be, poking holes like water though not even blood came out, half-beheading a man who only turned, beckoning her wryly to finish the job as though lifeless and unseeing. If all her jealousy and rage and woe was a weapon then she slashed as though swordsmanship was a skill she had picked up.

 _Men are harder to kill than I thought,_ Cersei thought. _They linger in death, they show no mercy, the fear crawls up my skin like a spider._

Cersei kept fighting until she could fight no more.


End file.
